Tomorrow, Wednesday, 18th October, is a date which is far more important than the FE sector recognises.
The Office for National Statistics will publish the rate of consumer price inflation (CPI) for September. The September CPI is used to uprate welfare benefits from the following April.
Benefits to parents
Parents of 16-18 year-olds in full-time further education are entitled to means-tested child benefit and child allowances within Universal Credit. Child benefit is paid for each child. Universal Credit is limited to the first two children.
The CPI for September 2023 was 10.1%. So, this April rates of child benefit and child allowances increased by a similar amount, a welcome boost in the face of the cost-of-living crisis to parents supporting 16-18 year-olds in full time further education.
Parents of 16-18 year-olds in full-time further education this September who are eligible for means-tested child benefit receive £1,248 per year for the first child and £826.80 per year for each additional child.
Parents who are supporting 16-18 year-olds in full-time further education and claiming Universal Credit are entitled to child allowances £3,780 per year for their first child and £3,234.96 per year for their second, although it is an outrage that nothing is paid for additional young people.
16-19 year-olds themselves are able to apply for Bursary Grants funded by the Department for Education. But access is far more restrictive and the amounts less generous than the Education Maintenance Allowance which it replaced.
The voice of parents of 16-18 FE students
As with a lot of education analysis, parents of schoolchildren and university students get a lot of air-time. But we very rarely hear how parents of 16-18 year-olds at a general FE college are coping with the cost-of-living crisis.
Tax cuts or benefit uprating?
Older teenagers are expensive to keep and not every 16-18 year-old in full-time further education can find a part-time job to supplement family income.
And so, it is somewhat alarming that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, is considering uprating welfare benefits by less than inflation to make way for tax cuts from April 2024.
This would be a bad outcome for the parents of young students in FE colleges. They need every penny so that their 16-18 year-olds can complete their further education.
The cost-of-living crisis and FE students
When the cost-of-living crisis took hold, the focus of Westminster, Whitehall and the media was on the impact on full-time higher education students. As the crisis deepened, thoughts turned towards part-time HE students.
Thanks to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Students and the Association of Colleges, there is an appreciation of how the cost-of-living crisis is impacting on FE students as well.
Work by the APPG for Students has also emphasised the sterling work FE colleges are doing to help 16-18 year-olds in further education, with access to free meals and assistance through bursary grants.
Indeed, as the 2023/24 academic year starts to take shape, many FE colleges are reporting increased applications for support from DfE capped bursary funds.
Maintaining benefit levels for parents
We in FE tend to focus on free meals and bursary funds to help 16-18 year olds at our institutions because this is what we have some control over.
But it is in the interest of the FE sector that parents – especially those on low and middle incomes - of 16-18 year-olds in further education are protected as far as possible from the cost-of-living crisis.
It is they who provide a roof over the head of our students, a bed at night and hopefully a meal.
Josh’s parents
Last year, I highlighted the plight of a talented bricklaying student, Josh - not his real name - who dropped out of Hartlepool College of Further Education to take a zero-hours job to financially support his mother and two younger siblings.
If we are to prevent more Josh’s dropping out, we need to ensure lower and middle incomes parents receive inflation proofed benefits to support today’s generation of 16-18 year-olds.
Darren Hankey is Principal of Hartlepool College of Further Education